is assigned approximately 800 frequencies to utilize per city (Gram and Tyson, p. 1). Verizon then divides a city into cells. The typical size of cells is approximately 10 square miles (Gram et al, p. 1).
Cells are typically viewed as hexagonal shapes, each with its own base stations – basically a shed or box containing the required radio equipment. Cell phones and base stations operate with low-power transmitters. Cells that are not next to one another can share the same frequencies. In order to avoid collisions, each cell use only a portion of the existing duplex voice channels so that each cell possesses a different frequency set. The following statistics are typical of Verizon infrastructure:
A cell phone carrier typically gets 832 radio frequencies to use in a city.
Each cell phone uses two frequencies per call – a duplex channel – so there are typically 395 voice channels per carrier (the remaining 42 are used for control channels).
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